A Covenant From the King

Mark 10:1-12

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You're listening to audio from Risen Life Fellowship. If you'd like to learn more about our church or donate to this ministry, please visit Risen Life Fellowship.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hey ma'am. I could just stay in that moment for like all day. Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that song. You know, not all new songs are terrible, right? That's a that's a amazing song. That's a newer newish song, right? What a beautiful lyrics. Um we sing holy, holy forever. You know, we we praise his holiness. And then the song before, we we but you can approach the throne boldly. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Even though he is holy, we have no business approaching the throne of God. Uh yet we can because of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Can I get a louder amen? You're all gonna have to get with it this morning. Come on now. Paul, come on, get us going here. Get us going, please. Well, good morning to you. Uh it's a blessing and a and a privilege to be with you and uh worshiping the Lord together in song and now opening his word. So turn with me, if you will, to Mark chapter 10. Ah, it's so good to see all the people that just had babies all coming back, and it's just getting full in here, right? Yeah. I mean, Gabby had a baby last week and she's here today. That's in that is she's well, I mean, that's crazy. That's crazy. I did not expect to see her this morning. So it's it's great to see you, Gabby, and and your family, and uh but man. All right, Mark chapter 10. We're gonna uh continue our our series through um through the gospel of Mark that we've entitled the The Servant King. Uh so we've been learning a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, uh, especially in these last couple of chapters here. And so this is a this is a major theme in the gospel of Mark, discipleship. What does it mean to follow Jesus? And so I want to quickly review some of the lessons we've learned about discipleship in the past few weeks. So here's a list of things we've learned, and I'll I'll do this quickly. So discipleship requires following Jesus in sacrifice. That was kind of the first one we learned. So denying self, taking up your cross, um it requires sacrifice. If you're going to follow Jesus, that requires sacrifice. Discipleship requires complete and constant dependency upon God, right? It's about Him, walking closely with Him, abiding in Him. It's not about what we can do or what we have done, it's about what Jesus has done. Um, discipleship requires and grows through spiritual disciplines. Um, if you're not committed to spiritual disciplines in your life, you're probably not finding yourself not growing very much. If you will not read the Bible, if you will not spend time in prayer, um, how are you cultivating that relationship with God exactly, right? So uh discipleship, we're gonna follow Jesus, that requires spiritual disciplines. Discipleship requires following Jesus in service to others, becoming last of all. Well, we want to fight for our rights. Jesus says, No, in my kingdom, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Discipleship requires radical love for others. Um, being careful not to cause my brothers and sisters uh to stumble in their faith. I have to love them enough to make maybe different decisions about how I interact with them. Discipleship requires radical warfare against sin in your life. Following Jesus means you need to go to war against sin. And then last week, as Drew led us through the end of chapter 9, we picked up a few more lessons. Um, and this is this is kind of my wording this morning, but disciples are refined through the trials of life. When you come to Jesus, you're not you're not you're not coming to like this life of no trials. In fact, trials are one of the major ways that God uses to refine us through that fire of a trial and uh and and conform us more to the image of Jesus. Discipleship also involves being salty, right? Not that kind of salty, right? Not all I'm salty, but um it requires being different. We're talking about obedience to God and his commands, being different than the rest of the world, right? Add some flavor. For goodness sake, don't be like everybody else. That's not what disciples are called to be. And then finally, discipleship involves fighting for unity with other believers. Unity with other believers. And so we've really developed a pretty robust theology. Uh Mark's developed it for us, right, through the Holy Spirit. Um, a robust theology here of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And we'll keep picking up on that, but um, what it means to truly follow him in discipleship. And so this morning the setting of Jesus' teaching changes in the text, but the lessons are gonna continue. So Jesus is gonna face head-on the topics of marriage and divorce, and through that, we're gonna learn that as disciples of Jesus, our families and and particularly our view of marriage must be radically different than the world's view of marriage. Your view of marriage needs to be totally different. If you're gonna follow Jesus, totally different than the common view of marriage in our world. Our world has one view of marriage and divorce that dishonors the Lord and leads to much heartbreak and emptiness. I mean, haven't we tried that long enough, for goodness sake? How many broken families do we have to have? But as disciples, we must look different from the world. We must look different from the world, not only not only so that we can experience abundant life ourselves, but also so that we can bring glory to our King and make his gospel known. Right? So it's high stakes. Our marriages are our high stakes. And so we're gonna learn that through uh yet another conflict with the Pharisees here in Mark chapter 10. So I'm gonna ask you to stand with me. We're gonna read the first 12 verses. And our title is gonna be A Covenant from the King. A covenant from the King. So let's read this in Mark chapter 10. And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And Pharisees came up and in order to test him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, What did Moses command you? They said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. And Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God is joined together, let not man separate. And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Let's pray. Father, we uh come before your word, and um this is a hard, hard topic this morning. Or when we're talking about uh divorce, Lord, uh Father, we're talking about something that many of us in this room we felt the effects of that in our lives. Um we've felt the heartbreak of that happening, um, either uh personally or or family members or uh maybe parents or or whatever, Lord. Many of us, uh probably almost all of us, have been touched by divorce. Um and Lord, we we just want to submit together uh this morning that your word is truth. Lord, it really we we may have our own opinions, we may have uh our own thoughts, but Lord, I pray that you'd help us put those aside this morning and and bow before your word and what your word says about what our marriages should look like and what you have to say about divorce and remarriage, Father. It's a hard word, um, but Lord, I pray that you would help us this morning and that you would still bring us back to the gospel, Father. Uh bring us back to your redeeming love, Lord, even in the most broken of situations, you can bring hope, Father. And you do bring hope every single day to hopeless situations. So, Father, if there's someone in here hopeless, uh maybe because of uh marriage, maybe because of divorce, maybe because of some other reason, Lord, I pray that you would shine the light of your hope this morning. That you would bring your hope, Father. Uh, no matter what the background is, Lord, no matter what uh past sins maybe we've committed, Father, I pray that you would illuminate us with your truth and with your grace and your hope this morning, Father. And we love you. Um I pray that you would speak through me, Lord. Nobody needs to hear my opinions, they need to hear from you. So, Father, speak through me, and uh you just make your message known to the people. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can have a seat. A covenant from the king will be our title this morning. As we open up chapter 10, we see that Jesus and his twelve disciples have left the house in Capernaum. That's where they were in chapter 9, uh, where much of the teaching of chapter 9 occurred. And they're headed uh to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, is what Mark says here. And this location beyond the Jordan, um, also called Perea in the first century. It's not called that in the biblical text, um, but it was known as the region of Perea. Um and this location um is gonna become important as we dive in and get the context here. So now Mark does not include a lot of the details about Jesus' ministry in Judea at this point. Um, and so those details can be found in Luke and John. They um talk about more of those details. But for Mark, the focus of his gospel at this point is Jesus' route to Jerusalem and to the cross. He has his eyes set firmly on the cross at this point. We're only one chapter away from that final and triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Um but on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus goes through this region of Perea and is teaching and healing the large the large crowds that are inevitably always following him. And this is just as he normally did. He's teaching them and he's healing them, Matthew says. And it's at this point that the Pharisees they see another opportunity to try to trip up Jesus once again, and that's where we're going to find our first point, uh, the deception of the deceived. The deception of the deceived. Now, remember that the Pharisees and religious leaders at this point have the sole focus with Jesus of finding a way to put him to death. Right? Marcus told us that. At this point, they're just plotting any way that they can put Jesus to death. They hate him. And they're sick of him stealing their influence, of the attention not being on themselves, and they um have hatred filling their hearts. They've hardened their hearts to truth, and they have murder in mind with every encounter with Jesus. So when they're asking Jesus a question, we can rest assured that their purpose is not a genuine answer to learn from. Oh, Jesus, please teach us. That is not the posture of the Pharisees here, but they are trying to publicly trap Jesus. They have fallen for Satan's deception about Jesus' identity and their own selfishness, their own hardness of heart, and now their only aim is to deceive others and to deceive Jesus and to try to trap Jesus. And not only are they deceived about Jesus' identity and mission, but they're also quite deceived about the nature of marriage and divorce. So they come to Jesus to test him, Mark says, asking, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Now, there's some really important context that we need to fully understand this question as it was asked. First of all, I mentioned before that Jesus is in the region called Perea, and this is the region that was ruled by Herod Antipos. Now, if you remember back a few chapters ago to Mark chapter 6, we'll remember that this same King Herod imprisoned and ultimately beheaded John the Baptist. And do you remember what the reason was? It was because John got in prison because he was very outspoken about Herod's divorce, right? And his subsequent uh remarriage to Herodias, who was the former wife of his half-brother. Right? And so he that John the Baptist was very outspoken about how wrong this was that Herod would do this. And so Herod arrested him, and ultimately Herodias wanted him put to death, and um and he was put to death. So it's no coincidence that they're asking this question in this region. The location is no coincidence here. They're assuming that Jesus has the same stance on divorce and remarriage as uh John had, and that hopefully Herod will catch wind of this and arrest Jesus and put an end to Jesus once and for all. So there's no sincerity in their question here. But there's also a second piece of context that we need here. You see, in the first century Roman Empire, not unlike today, divorce was easy to obtain and it was very frequent. The Jews may have had a slightly better track record than the rest of the world, but divorce was also not uncommon among the Jews. And there were two schools of rabbis who taught two very different things about divorce. First of all, there was the school of Rabbi Shemai. This was the more strict school of thought, and they taught that divorce was only permissible in cases of sexual immorality, of adultery. But there was another school of thought from the teachings of Rabbi Hillel, who taught that divorce could be sought by a man for pretty much any reason, sought by a man, not a woman, for pretty much any reason at all. And the debate centered around this verse in Deuteronomy 24, verse 1, which says essentially that when a man finds some indecency in his wife and writes her a certificate of divorce, and she remarries another man, the first man cannot get her back. So that's essentially what the verse says there in Deuteronomy. You can go back and and read that. This was a law from God that was never meant to and does not command divorce, but it was given to regulate what was already happening among the Jewish people and to protect the woman who was divorced by her husband, and that would have left her in a very helpless state. When a wife was left without a husband in ancient times, that would have left her in a very helpless state with no income and no ability to support herself. But the rabbis by the first century were using this verse as a permission to get divorced for any reason whatsoever. Now, the more uh liberal Hillel school said that indecency in that verse could be anything the husband found displeasing. Even a wife uh showing her ankles, or wearing her hair down, or burning his mill, even. This is mentioned by some of the rabbis. Or even if he just preferred another woman over his wife. He would say he's found some indecency with his current wife. This was a disgusting practice where the leaders were exploiting God's law for their own purposes of feeding their own self-interest and their own lust. And so divorce became common for the leaders of Israel then, um, and then by extension for the people. And man held all the power to get a divorce. A woman could only do so with her husband's permission, and to get his permission, he would actually probably have to admit he was wrong about something, right? So that was unlikely to get. So it was another gross misuse of God's law. And the Pharisees saw this as an opportunity to trap Jesus by offending the crowds, many of whom probably had um had a divorce or been affected by uh divorce. And so their aim was to trap Jesus in in one of two ways, either Herod or get the crowds against Jesus. But Jesus, Jesus is smarter than that, right? And so Jesus was prepared for their deception and and takes the question uh to a higher plane. And that's gonna where we're gonna see our second point, the design of the divine. The design of the divine. So the culture of the day was divorce is permissible for pretty much any reason. And in fact, in Matthew 19, uh verse 3, this is a parallel passage of the one we're reading, and it's recorded that the Pharisees' question in its entirety was, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? And so you can see there, they're thinking in terms of that school of Hillel, can I just divorce my wife for any reason? Now, we live in a culture that is um that is very similar. Always looking for an easy way out of marriage. We want to have the freedom to rush into marriage to anyone without much thought at all, if we want to. And then be able to get out of that marriage as soon as those feelings of love fade away. That seemed to be somewhat the culture of Jesus' day as well, and that's certainly our culture today. The culture of I'll love you until I don't love you, right? That seems to be the vows that we live by today as a society. Instead of till death do us part, it's till I no longer feel love for you for whatever reason I choose. Or till I meet another, right? Till I meet my real soulmate.

unknown 21:06

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Don't buy into the soulmate theology, okay? That's going to lead you astray. Um, but but I'll be with you until until I find someone better. Isn't that uh kind of the motto of our day? And we practice that um marriage culture by the way we date. All right, so single people by the way um we date, rather than dating with the purpose of marriage. That's the reason you should date, with the purpose of marriage in mind. Uh not that every dating has to end in marriage, but that should be your purpose in your dating. You should have purpose in your dating. Amen. Don't just date aimlessly. And don't just go out there and date to have quote unquote fun. You will find that you're not having much of it, actually. You will find that you're leading yourself to much heartbreak by that kind of mindset. And you're practicing for divorce. And so we practice this culture of trying it out and discarding it over and over again by the way that we date. Our culture is one that is made a mockery of marriage in every way. By first of all, trying to redefine marriage by making divorce very easy and like, oh yeah, just get a divorce. It's no big deal. And by rushing marriage, at the same time, by delaying marriage and living together without any real commitment of marriage. Living together is not a commitment. Can we amen that this morning? We don't like to talk about that one. We don't like to talk about the heterosexual Christians who are living together. It's also not honoring to God. Just as dishonoring as the homosexual, as homosexuality, right? We like to talk about that one, but we don't like to face the issues that we're allowing to sit in our churches every single week, right? And say nothing. Everyone's welcome, but we must hold each other accountable to this word. Amen. So we we practice by delaying marriage, um, living together without any real commitment of marriage. But it is God who created marriage. It's not the state. It's not you and I. It's God who created marriage, and it is God, therefore, who gets to define what marriage is and if and when divorce is permissible. And that's where Jesus takes the debate in this passage. He answers their question with a question of his own. Don't you love when Jesus does that? He always does that same. They ask a question, he just is ready with his own question. Verse 3 says, He answered them, What did Moses command you? I love that response because Jesus, rather than just giving a quick answer, he grounds the discussion not on what anyone has to say, but on what God's word has to say. He says, What does the scripture say? What did Moses command? He's talking about the scripture, the written word. What did Moses say? What does the scripture say? That ought to be a pattern for us as believers. We spend way too much time asking, well, what do you think? Even a pastor, like, what do you think, Pastor Josh? It doesn't matter what I think. It does not matter what your pastor thinks. Unless he's pointing you to what God thinks. It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter what your wife thinks. What your husband thinks. It matters what your wife thinks. I may have misspoke a little bit. I'm sorry, honey. A good husband cares deeply what his wife thinks, right? Amen? Amen? But when it comes to how we're going to structure our lives, what truth do we need? We don't need wife's truth. We need God's truth. God's truth is the only truth. That's the point I'm trying to make and fumbling around. God's truth is what matters. What does God say? We need to make that a pattern of our lives, Christian. I talk way too much. You come to counsel for me and I will begin to blab truth that's from God's word. But what if I just went to God's word? That's something my wife and I have tried to make more of a practice of in our counseling. It's like, maybe we're speaking good things, but let's just hear straight from the source. This is God's word. This Bible that's hopefully in front of you this morning, this is God's word. It matters not what you think or feel about a particular issue. It matters not what I think or feel about a particular issue. We may have our opinions, but the only relevant truth is the truth. What does God say? He's the one you're gonna be, um who's gonna hold you accountable. He's the one you're gonna stand before. Okay, so we better make sure we understand what he has to say. You know, you can feel something so strongly in your bones, but if it's in disagreement with the word of God, you better drop it and submit yourself to what he says. I didn't hear any amens on that. Thank you, Bill. There's a lesson for our marriages right there, right? What does God say about your marriage? What does God say about your role? We've got to stop living in the realm of what do I think or feel and start living in the realm of what does God want for me? Jesus takes it back to the only truth that matters, God's truth revealed in God's word. And the Pharisees think they're ready for this one. They have a quick answer. They refer back to that verse in Deuteronomy saying, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. Boy, that just seems so heartless to say something like that, right? And when Moses allowed us to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away. Obviously, um, these Pharisees were subscribing to that more liberal school of Hillel, right? And using the law to skate around God's design for marriage in order to meet their own sinful desires. They say, as long as you write her a certificate, it's okay to divorce for any reason. And in this they reveal their evil hearts. Now, before we point the finger, let's ask ourselves if there's any area of life where we do the same thing they're doing here? Are there any areas where we attempt to utilize scripture out of context to justify our own sin? I want you to seriously think about that. Is there any area where you're using scripture to justify your own sin? That's what they were doing. Are there times when we ask, how close can I get to sin? Now that's kind of the question they're asking. Is it okay if we get a divorce? How close can I get to sin before God considers it sin? Are there times when we're asking that question as Christians? We need to stay far away from that question. Instead, we need to be asking, what brings God the most glory? What brings him glory? When we find ourselves thinking like the Pharisees here, we must call it out as equally evil as what we see here. See what they're attempting to do here. But Jesus, he doesn't let them get away with it. They're thinking of this obscure, unique law that Moses wrote in Deuteronomy, but Jesus is thinking about something else Moses wrote. You see, Jesus wrote more books than Deuteronomy, right? Jesus is thinking about what Moses wrote in Genesis, where God instituted this covenant called marriage. Jesus tells them that what Moses recorded in Deuteronomy was because of your hardness of heart. Because you were set on corrupting God's design in marriage, but it was not meant to be this way. Divorce was never, it was never meant to be that way. It was a concession to limit human sinfulness, to make divorce a little bit harder to obtain, and to get them to think about the permanence of what you're doing there in a divorce and to protect the woman who was sent off in a divorce. But God's design was never divorce. It was always that marriage would be a permanent, lifelong union between a man and a woman. Jesus takes them back to God's design and creation in verses 6 through 9 here. He quotes from Genesis 1.27 and then from Genesis 2.24. And so he takes them back to the beginning when God saw that there was not a helper suitable for Adam. And he created not another man, and he created not a bunch of bros for Adam. Oh, they'll keep him company. But he created a woman as his helpmate. He gave man the greatest gift apart from salvation through Jesus Christ. Woman. I hope you see it that way, man, men in the room. It's the greatest gift we have apart from salvation through Christ. He created woman, and that woman would be a wife to Adam. And in Genesis 2.24, which Jesus quotes here, God says, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. So we gather a few things here about God's original design and intent. First of all, one man, one woman. Period. God's design is heterosexual and monogamous. This is God's clear design from the beginning. And to deviate from his design is sin. One man, one woman in an exclusive relationship where they will leave father and mother and hold fast to one another now. This is the strongest, he uses the strongest possible Hebrew word for this bond between man and wife. They are joined together, glued together, permanently bonded together, pursuing hard after one another in this togetherness. This is God's design. Some of you listening this morning may just be existing together as husband and wife, like mere roommates. And you need to listen up to God's design. We need to listen to God's design. It's not that you would be mere roommates, it's that the two would become one flesh. His will is that as a married couple, you would hold fast to one another, embrace this oneness, find joy in one another, pursue hard after one another, cleave to one another. Married couples in the room, are you doing that? Husband, are you pursuing hard after your wife's heart? How did you do that this week? Are you pursuing hard after your wife's heart? And don't just blow by that question. Wife, are you pursuing hard after your husband? Desiring to know him more, yearning to be more connected, more close, walking more closely day after day. God's design is that two become one flesh in marriage. C.S. Lewis likened this oneness to a lock and key. One not meant to function apart from the other. Or to a violin and a bow. Both completely interdependent upon each other to make this beautiful symphony of sound. Marriage is a merger of two completely separate lives into one flesh, one singular shared destiny. One emotionally, one intellectually, financially, spiritually, and in every other way. So interdependent that it's as if they function as one person. You say, oh, but the kids. The kids get in the way. No, no, no, no. The relationship between man and wife is to be primary in your home. Amen? That's God's design. Man and wife is to be the primary relationship in your home. Not to the neglect of the kids, but for the good of the kids. For the good of the kids. When you entered into this covenant before God, you were willingly becoming one flesh with this man or this woman. Marriage is a precious gift from God. And how dare we distort this beautiful bond that he has created? We may try to do it differently than what he has said. But make no mistake, there is no life to be found in any other way but the way he prescribes. This oneness is to be a picture of Christ and his great love for his bride, the church. In Ephesians 5, 32, Paul gives instructions in that chapter to wives and then to husbands. I'd say this in every marriage I officiate. I think this is very, very important here. He gives his instructions to the wives and then to the husbands. And I wish we had time to go through all the details there. And that's your homework, in fact, married couples especially. Go through this with your spouse for homework. Or even as a single person, as a guidance for what you ought to be looking for in a spouse. Ephesians 5 tells us. But in verse 32, there, to sum it all up, Paul says, This mystery is profound, and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church. He gives all this instruction to the wives, then to the husbands, and then he raises the stakes way beyond just the two of you when he says, essentially, by the way, what you're doing here in this ordinance of marriage is a reflection of the gospel. It's a picture of Jesus Christ loving his church for whom he gave his life. It's as if he's saying the stakes are so much higher than you think they are. Don't mess up God's picture of God's salvation through Jesus Christ. That's what marriage was made for. That's a primary reason to be a picture to this world of Christ's love for us. You have the opportunity in your marriage to display to the world how much Jesus loves his bride, the church. How he sacrifices for his bride, how he sticks by his bride no matter what. Jesus is not leaving the church. How he fights to present his bride holy at the end. That's what marriage should picture. And we better think twice before messing that up just willy-nilly. Because we're not happy. Or because we've fallen out of love. What does that tell the children? More importantly, what does that tell the world about Jesus and his church? Well, Jesus will just leave whenever you don't obey. I don't think that's the picture we want to give to the world. The oneness in marriage reflects something so sacred about God's own nature and his commitment to his people. He is committed to his people. And so permission to divorce was never the design. And I'll go a step further and say neither was just existing together as roommates, refusing to humble ourselves and lay down our lives for our spouses, living in a loveless, lifeless cohabitation that also was never Jesus' design for marriage. The design was for joy, for a help to one another, for a oneness, a sweet unity, a pursuit of one another and feeling of being pursued. A picture of Christ and his church. One man, one woman, no divorce whatsoever. That's God's design. And we can try to distort his design all that we want, but he is the creator. And he is the definer of marriage. And it's only in following what he has laid out that we will find the life we're looking for. Jesus takes us back to creation and concludes in verse 9 with, What therefore God is joined together, let not man separate. Divorce should not be in the vocabulary of two disciples bonded together in marriage who are pursuing after Christ. However, in this fallen world of sin and death, there are times when this beautiful gift of God is turned into a nightmare because of sin. And the grace of Jesus, I want you to know, prevails even in our sin. So let's look at one final point this morning: the deliverance through the distortion. Jesus takes the divorce debate all the way back to the garden and God's creation. And the implication of his teaching is that divorce should not be an option. And then in verse 10, he's now alone again with the twelve, and he clarifies even further. He says that whoever divorces his wife and remarries commits adultery against her. And if a wife divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Now, in Jewish law in the first century, not God's law, but the law they were operating by in the first century, a man could not commit adultery against his wife by sexual immorality with another woman who was unmarried. That wasn't considered adultery. But only if the other woman was married to another man and the adultery was against that other husband. Because this, they wrongly saw this as a property issue, not an issue of human value. Very sadly. But Jesus levels the playing field by saying that a husband, first of all, can commit adultery against his wife. And even if he divorces her for an unbiblical reason and marries another, he commits adultery. This is a big statement Jesus was making to the dignity and value of women, giving them dignity and value that the first century did not give them. Not only that, Jesus here seems to be condemning all divorce and subsequent remarriage as contrary to God's will, giving his disciples the highest possible standards for marriage. Jesus reiterates that God hates divorce. As Jesus' disciples, we must view marriage differently than the world does. We should never view divorce, something God hates, as necessary for us. However, in the reality of sin and the fall, Jesus does give at least two exceptions. To what he says here. And the first we find in the parallel passage back in Matthew 19, verse 9, Jesus' words are recorded there as whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. And the word there for sexual immorality is pornea. That's a broad term for any sexual intercourse that was contrary to the moral standards of Scripture between man and wife. Jesus doesn't say that divorce is commanded or required or even preferred in cases of sexual immorality. That's not what he says. But it is permitted, along with then remarriage for the innocent party. See, in the law, in God's law, back in Exodus and Leviticus, the penalty for adultery was death. It was death. So in the case of adultery, the innocent party may remarry as if her spouse or his spouse is dead. Now again, divorce was never God's design and never required or necessary. There can be forgiveness and complete restoration through the power of the gospel. Even in cases of the worst kinds of adultery. This gospel is powerful to save and to rescue and to redeem any situation, to bring hope in any situation. But divorce is permitted in the case of adultery. There's one other exception that Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 15. And it involves a believer being married to an unbeliever. Which happened commonly in the first century. Because you might have a pagan husband and wife, and one of them comes to Christ, right? One of them hears the gospel and embraces the gospel, and the other does not. And the other may hate the gospel and resent their spouse for coming to Christ. And so it's that scenario when a believer is married to an unbeliever. So, first of all, if a believer is married to an unbeliever, and the unbeliever is willing to stay in the marriage, Paul addresses this, the believer should never seek divorce. The believer should not seek divorce. However, if the unbelieving partner separates, Paul says, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. That would indicate to me that the person is free to allow the desired divorce and subsequently remarry without committing adultery, as Jesus says in Mark 10. Now, there are also instances in scriptures, in scripture, where a believer is to be treated as an unbeliever because they refuse to follow God in obedience. And so they've followed the process of church discipline, which is found in Matthew 18. And in that case, if they were to seek to leave a marriage, 1 Corinthians 7 may apply. But that is one reason why belonging to a church is so important. It's important that we belong to a church family. There are very complicated cases in our world of sin. Right? And God and I want to show compassion to those complicated cases. And each case should be prayed through and worked through carefully in conjunction with the elders of your church. For example, in the case of physical abuse, God desires protection of the offended spouse, first of all. So safety first, and working in conjunction with the elders of the church and potentially law enforcement in those cases as well, to figure out what the best route forward may be. Now, I want to say there are pastors and commentators who love the Lord very much and who would see these exceptions differently than I do. Some would say that there are no exceptions, and divorce should never happen. Some of this seems very clear to me, so I don't know how they could say no exceptions, but there are some that would say no exceptions whatsoever. Others may be more liberal with the interpretation, but what I see clearly in Scripture is that God hates divorce, and his design for marriage is always a permanent union between man and wife. Divorce is never necessary, and the gospel can penetrate and redeem any situation. But there are two possible exceptions to no divorce and to what Jesus says here in Mark 10: adultery and abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. Those two exceptions constitute biblical grounds for divorce and by extension permission to remarry. Any other reason for divorce, including the common irreconcilable differences that we see often in our culture and apparently in the first century as well, any other reason are unbiblical grounds for divorce and reconciliation with that spouse should be sought if at all possible. A subsequent marriage to someone else in those cases is adultery, according to Jesus. I realize as I say that that this is a hard word. In a day where divorce runs rampant, and biblical teaching on divorce is rare. But we must decide as disciples of Jesus that God's word will be our authority. No matter what, other ideas may be running through our minds and our hearts. And so, based on what we've seen in God's word, I want to uh I want to uh give some encouragements that I would give in a variety of situations regarding divorce. If you are the innocent party in an adulterous situation, then divorce is certainly not required or even necessarily favorable. However, the innocent party is not bound and is free to divorce and subsequently remarry another believer, if and when that should present itself. If you're a believer in a marriage to an unbeliever and have been abandoned in that marriage, they went out, then you are free to go forward with that divorce and remarry again to a believer if and when that time is right in conjunction with your local church. If you have had a divorce for an unbiblical reason in the past, if possible, seek reconciliation or remain single as you serve the Lord. If you had an unbiblical divorce and have remarried already, don't seek another divorce. And don't stay in a state of perpetual condemnation. Confess and repent of that previous unbiblical divorce and move forward in that new marriage seeking to live out God's design for marriage. If you're in a situation of physical abuse, then please hear me this morning. God desires your protection. Your immediate step is to alert the civic authorities and church elders. Seek out church elders to step in and fight for you. God does not desire your physical abuse. You know, the strictness of Jesus is not intended to keep the broken in a prison of past mistakes or certainly in current abuse. But it's to point us to the only one who can fix what's been broken by sin. And it has to be done his way. Divorce is something that God hates, and it was never his design or intent. But divorce is also, hear me here, divorce is also not the unpardonable sin. Now, if you take that to mean that you can just move forward and seek divorce or seek an unbiblical remarriage and just ask forgiveness for it later, beware. Be very careful. That is not the heart of a person who wants to honor God and who is truly seeking Him. But if this is part of your story, if this is part of your past, find hope this morning that divorce is not the unpardonable sin. Adultery is not the unpardonable sin. Abandonment is not the unpardonable sin. Jesus gave his life on the cross for even our most defiant and dishonorable moments. And when we repent of sin and place our trust in him, he promises us, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is passed away. Behold, the new has come. You can find forgiveness at the cross of Christ. He has seen us in our brokenness, in our selfishness, in our sinful situations, and has chosen to take it all upon himself to nail it to the cross so that we can be forgiven. We're going to move to a closing point. I'm going to ask the band to come on back up. God's design for marriage, along with his design for everything else, are meant to lead us to abundant life. He knows that if we embrace the same attitude the world has towards marriage and divorce, we're going to be left empty and broken and searching. And many of us have been devastated by the effects of divorce. Maybe it's something we've we've had in our past or something that those that we love dearly have experienced, and it's affected us. But he has come that we might find life in his name, in his sacrifice on the cross, and that we might live abundantly. If you don't know Christ today, stop chasing every sinful desire that leads to more brokenness and more emptiness. And come and find forgiveness in him. Come and find life in his name and in his ways. It doesn't matter what you've done, what kind of past you've had, he will forgive you because of the cross. If you will humble yourself before him. On the contrary, he's come to lay down his life for your sin and help you find the joy and the abundance that he does offer. Come to him this morning through repentance and faith. To the single this morning. But to the single this morning, don't seek to rush out of your singleness. Use your gift of singleness for purity, for more time undistracted with your Savior, for an unhindered mission to build his kingdom. You're not wrong for seeking marriage, but don't rush into marriage. Trust the Lord's timing regarding marriage and be wise in stepping into that covenant. Understanding the seriousness. I hope this has given you a glimpse of the seriousness by which God takes marriage. To the married this morning, redirect your heart towards God's perfect design for marriage. Pursue your spouse. Embrace the oneness and the interdependence of marriage. Embrace it. Do the hard work. Do the hard, painful work of seeking God's command for your role in marriage. Do the hard work of walking in his spirit, walking in his ways. Get your eyes off of him or her and their problems. And ask, what is my role? What is my role in this marriage? He is the redeemer. And he can redeem even the most broken situation. If we'll humble ourselves before him. Remember that when you said I do, you were making a covenant to God. To stand by this man or this woman in that oneness. To do marriage his way and on his terms. Remember that and ask God, we're all woefully inadequate, right? To fulfill our roles perfectly. Ask God to help you. Believe that his way is best and walk in his way. If your marriage is struggling this morning, seek the elders of this church and find help. Find help. Don't keep just fading away from each other. Find help in getting back to the basics of walking with God and walking with that one He's given you. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I know this is a hard topic. Look, we we preached through books of the Bible here. We're not going to skip any topic that Jesus has for us. This is a hard topic with some hard truth. And if there are any questions or situations that I can help clarify, we're not able to go through every little situation in this setting. But it would be my joy, and Patrick and Drew, it'd be our joy to help walk through any questions you may have or any situations that we've not covered today. It would be impossible to cover every situation. So please ask if you have questions. And as we close, if you need to come to Christ for the first time, then come. Humble yourself before him. Ask him to forgive you and to cleanse you. And he will. You will find life in his name. And for the rest of us, let's ask the Lord to search our hearts for where our lives and our marriages need to be more conformed to his word this morning. I'll give you a few moments to do what you need to do. I'll be in the back if you need me, and then we'll we'll sing together.